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ACCIDENT INSURANCE --ETC.
DELIVERED IN HARTFORD, AT A DINNER TO CORNELIUS WALFORD,
OF LONDON
GENTLEMAN,--I am glad, indeed, to assist in welcoming the distinguished
guest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance centre has
extended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple band of
brothers working sweetly hand in hand--the Colt's arms company making the
destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life-insurance citizens
paying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuating
their memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance comrades
taking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming our
guest--first, because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt of
hospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because he
is in sympathy with insurance, and has been the means of making many
other men cast their sympathies in the same direction.
Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insurance
line of business--especially accident insurance. Ever since I have been
a director in an accident-insurance company I have felt that I am a
better man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed a
kindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half their
horror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest--as an
advertisement. I do not seem, to care for poetry any more. I do not
care for politics--even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now
there is a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable.
There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an
entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon
of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in
their eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience
of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a
freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with his
remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seen
nothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer's
face when he found he couldn't collect on a wooden leg.
I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity
which we have named the HARTFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY is an
institution, which is peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to
prosper who gives it his custom. No man pan take out a policy in it and
not get crippled before the year is out. Now there was one indigent man
who had been disappointed so often with other companies that he had grown
disheartened, his appetite left him, he ceased to smile--said life was
but a weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to insure with us, and now he
is the brightest, happiest spirit in this land--has a good steady income
and a stylish suit of new bandages every day, and travels around on a
shutter.
I will say in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is
none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I
curl say the same far the rest of the speakers.
ACCIDENT INSURANCE --ETC.
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